Bit.ly, the number one URL shortener on the internet, was one of the first players in the space. While it rocketed way ahead of TinyURL, most popular social services like Google, Facebook and Twitter have started using their own URL shortening services like goo.gl, fb.me and t.co.

Anyway, Bit.ly still continues to be used by millions of users and is also integrated with thousands of apps and web services.

This week, it launched a new realtime search engine called “rt.ly“, which enables you to gauge the pulse of the internet — essentially what the internet is talking about, based on data generated by the millions of bit.ly links being shared by users across the web.

Bit.ly has been looking to monetize its vast user base and database of millions of links one way or another. It recently rolled out a bookmarking service, and also targeted enterprises with an advanced offering.

Here’s the official statement by Bit.ly labs on Realtime (rt.ly):

“Realtime is an attention ranking engine, offering the power to navigate through the stories that the world is paying attention to right now. Realtime allows you to filter attention by location, network, language, and topic. Want to see all stories about food being clicked on from Facebook? All of the stories about coffee? Easy. Stories only remain in the system as long as they are actively receiving attention.

There’s a bunch of fun technology under the hood. We fetch the content of every link saved or shared through bitly, analyze that content, then build models of human attention by analyzing the click distributions to the stories we see (at the phrase, URL, and story levels). The realtime interface provides you with the tools to navigate the stream of attention to these stories, and calculates the ranking at the moment that you make a request, so you’re always seeing the freshest content.”

While the beta service is currently free, Bit.ly could eventually roll out a premium version for paying subscribers, giving them access to advanced analytics and other features.